Business Leader

Rishi Khosla, the co-founder and chief executive of OakNorth, joins Graham Ruddick to tell the story of how OakNorth was built. Founded in 2015, OakNorth was valued at $2.8bn (£2.1bn) in its last funding round and is generating annual profits of more than £200m. Khosla and co-founder Joel Perlman set-out to revolutionise banking for small and medium-sized businesses. Despite some ups and down...

Innovation isn’t reserved for tech giants. It’s the beating heart of any business that wants to grow and stay relevant. In this episode, we dive into what it takes to build a culture where innovation thrives. From uncovering hidden skills in your workforce to reshaping how teams collaborate, you’ll discover practical steps to spark new thinking. We speak with David Keene, the co-founder and CEO of...

It was not until 1998 that Starbucks opened its first UK coffee shop. Around the same time, Martyn Dawes, who suspected that people wanted easier access to quality coffee, started putting Coffee Nation coffee machines into shops. Today, coffee shops are everywhere and Coffee Nation has become Costa Express, which is owned by Coca-Cola after a blockbuster £3.9bn takeover. In this episode of the Bus...

AI has been called the biggest business shift since the internet but what does that actually mean for your business? In this episode, Matt Weaver of OpenAI explains how businesses can move beyond experiments and embed AI into daily operations. He reveals why literacy, executive sponsorship and experimentation are the three critical levers leaders must pull. You’ll also hear how Virgin Atlantic is...

WD-40 is one of the world's best-known brands. You probably keep a can somewhere in your house for unjamming locks and stopping squeaks. The company was founded in San Diego, California in the 1950s and the secret formula used in WD-40 was devised by a team working on missile maintenance in the aerospace industry. Today the company is worth around $3 billion and listed on the stock market in the U...

In today’s competitive business landscape, technical skills and strategy are no longer enough to lead effectively. Emotional intelligence, the ability to understand yourself, manage your emotions, and connect with others, is increasingly becoming the defining trait of successful leaders. In this episode, we speak to Amy Jacobson, who has written a book titled The Emotional Intelligence Advantage:...

Tim Richards tells the story of how he founded Vue International and built it into one of the biggest cinema chains in the world... Hosted by Graham Ruddick Produced by Anouszka Tate  Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to help them grow with purpose through strategic support, peer-to-peer learning, expert coaching, and...

This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for travelling as people enjoy their summer holidays. Many of you will have travelled on Wizz Air, one of the biggest airlines in Europe and a business that has emerged as a new low-cost rival to Ryanair and EasyJet in recent years. In this classic episode of the Business Leader Podcast, Graham Ruddick speaks to Jozsef Varadi, the founder and chief exec...

In the finale of series 1, we look at Chiefs' attempt to achieve their goal by winning the double, when to take tough personnel decisions and break down the full anatomy of the turnaround. Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to help them grow with purpose through strategic support, peer-to-peer learning, expert coaching, and...

The start of the new football season is here, which means lots of new football kits, including many made by Castore, the UK's answer to Nike and Adidas. In this classic episode of the Business Leader Podcast from early 2024, Graham Ruddick sits down with Castore co-founder and chief executive Tom Beahon to hear the story of how he and his brother Phil have built a new sportswear giant... Business...

What happens after you reach the top? In the fourth instalment of our five-part series, Exeter Chiefs claim their first Premiership title but then face a new challenge: staying there.  We explore how a solid culture can negate complacency, how focusing on what they could control got Chiefs through a major scandal and the Covid lockdown and much more. Business Leader is a membership community...

Gordon Sanghera, the co-founder and chief executive of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, has announced he will step down as boss after more than 20 years of building the business into a £2bn unicorn at the forefront of science and technology. In this classic episode of the Business Leader Podcast from early 2023 (back when it was called Business Studies!) Graham Ruddick speaks to Gordon Sanghera about...

What do you do when you've come so close, only to fall short again and again?  In this third episode of our five-part series, we dive into Exeter Chiefs’ toughest year, which included four major heartbreaks in 14 months, a painful Premiership final loss and a crisis of confidence. We find out about the behind-the-scenes team meeting that changed everything. It’s a raw and inspiring look at re...

You asked, we delivered. Our fantastic Business Leader audience is growing fast and you have been asking us to share our favourite episodes from the back catalogue. So throughout August we will be doing just that and re-publishing some of our best founder and scale-up stories. This episode on Monzo is a classic scale-up story. How do you turn a popular consumer brand into a business that actually...

Simon Sinek, the best-selling author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, joins Richard Harpin and Graham Ruddick to discuss how to build a successful business. To listen to previous episodes of How to Make a Billion and get updates when new episodes go live, subscribe to the series via the links below: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-to-make-a-billion-in-9-steps-with-richard-h...

This is the second episode of our five-part series, where we revisit the night Exeter Chiefs rewrote their destiny. From underdog mentality to promotion glory, hear how grit, resilience and leadership took this Devon side into the Premiership for the first time. Discover how strategy, culture and character won out over money and reputation, and what business leaders can learn from one of sport’s m...

Nike historian Scott Reames joins Graham Ruddick to discuss the story of how the world's biggest sports brand was built. They discuss: -The origins of the Nike name and swoosh logo -What Phil Knight was like as a founder and chief executive -How challenges in the 1980s lay the foundations for Nike to go from good to great -The other key people who helped build Nike, such as Rob Strasser -What the...

What does it take to turn around an organisation? Take it from struggling to thriving? Rock bottom to the top? The Turnaround will tell the stories of the organisations and people who have done just this. In series one, we look to the world of sport and the remarkable story of how a small rugby team in Devon went from amateurs to English and European champions. That team is Exeter Chiefs. You will...

What causes CEO burn-out? What can be done to avoid it? And how do you help CEOs who have burned out? Welcome to the Paracelsus Recovery clinic, which has been treating CEOs in Zurich since 2013. Patients are assigned therapists who live with them during their stay and are on-call 24/7. A team of 15 people, including psychiatrists, nurses, nutritionists and personal chefs, are responsible for each...

In this new podcast series, Richard Harpin, who built Homeserve into a £4.1bn business, explores his nine steps to building a billion-pound business. In episode two, Richard speaks with Steve Hewitt, the former chief executive of Gymshark, about three of his steps. These steps are: -Bricks, clicks and paper -Hire your replacement -Go global with locals To find out more about Richard’s nine steps a...

The financial crisis nearly destroyed Britain's banks, but from the remnants of this chaos the Business Growth Fund was created. BGF, backed by the biggest UK banks, is now the most active investor in small and medium-sized businesses in the country. If the UK is to turn more promising businesses into large companies then BGF will be key. It has already invested £4.5bn into more than 600 businesse...

In this new podcast series, Richard Harpin, who built Homeserve into a £4.1bn business, explores his nine steps to building a billion-pound business. In episode one, Richard speaks with Touker Suleyman, the Dragons' Den star, about the first three of his steps. These steps are: -Copy and pivot -Get an investor -Get some coachment To find out more about Richard’s nine steps and how to build a succe...

Sir John Hegarty is one of the most revered figures in the UK advertising industry. Starting out in ‘swinging Sixties’ London, he went on to be a founding partner of Saatchi & Saatchi in the 1970s and co-founder of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) in the early 1980s. With BBH he masterminded adverts that became part of the national conversation, including the Levi's 501 jeans adverts...

GoFundMe is one of the world’s biggest crowdfunding platforms. It focuses on charitable donations and has generated over $30bn in funds since it launched in 2010. It is based in San Diego, California and has more than 800 employees. But it has been led by a Brit, Tim Cadogan, since 2020. Dougal Shaw speaks to Tim Cadogan in the latest episode of the Business Leader Podcast. Cadogan grew up and stu...

Kenny Wilson speaks to Graham Ruddick about the story behind how Dr Martens, the famous footwear brand, trebled its annual revenues to £1 billion while he was chief executive. It is a story that begins with Kenny Wilson as a promising footballer at Aberdeen while Sir Alex Ferguson was manager, involves learning about brand and leadership at Levi's, and has some challenges along the way... Business...